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i find it more useful to be designing the sound once i actually have a track going cos then i can feel what's needed. if i'm just fucking around with a synth with the aim to make "cool sounds" it can be a bit aimless and unproductive.

it's best to just stick to one synth till you exhaust all the options in it or it can't get that sound you hear in your head then bounce between a bunch

symmetricalsounds wrote:i find it more useful to be designing the sound once i actually have a track going cos then i can feel what's needed. if i'm just fucking around with a synth with the aim to make "cool sounds" it can be a bit aimless and unproductive.

true, but if you design a sound first you could build the track around that. Depens on your preference really.

Project EX wrote:

symmetricalsounds wrote:i find it more useful to be designing the sound once i actually have a track going cos then i can feel what's needed. if i'm just fucking around with a synth with the aim to make "cool sounds" it can be a bit aimless and unproductive.

true, but if you design a sound first you could build the track around that. Depens on your preference really.

yeah and i have done that on occasion i just seem to be more productive the other way around.

when i sit down for making patches i'm always way to generous with stuff that ruins the mix, ending up changing the patches anyway. Also with a huge list of patches i kept on browsing and browsing never getting anything done. I've learned basic synthesis so i would know in wich direction to go when i get an idea. Learning to use envelopes also took away alot of frustration. still an amateur though...

now if i could only find that one snare i had yesterday...

A problem I have with this is that a lot of synth sounds can sound totally corny unless used in the right context. I basically only do synth programming from scratch if I already have some loops going and I either 1) know exactly what I want, or 2) have absolutely no idea what I want.

Tiresome? I just spent the best part of 2 days setting up mixer templates on FL. Check, your move.

resampling is fun
listen to some neurofunk dnb now thats a fucking hard genre to make synths for
its probably more science than music

I get more out of messing with fx chain combinations than tweaking synths themselves, but I can definitely see how mastering your synth of choice would be empowering. As was touched on it comes down to your personality, definitely prefer not to know all of the mechanics of what's going on when I do x y and z. Find it a barrier to actually hearing the music

Where this gets weird for me is in genres / scenes where you're spending two days EQing your snares and a week processing your bass just to get it to sound like everyone else's. To me, spending hours processing, resampling, slicing, distorting, filtering, EQing, resampling, reversing etc to get a really mad and unique sound seems pretty reasonable, but when you've got to do all that stuff just so that your sounds don't sound weak and do sound like everyone else, it seems like it's stifling actual innovation and it's maybe time to change style.

slothrop wrote:Where this gets weird for me is in genres / scenes where you're spending two days EQing your snares and a week processing your bass just to get it to sound like everyone else's. To me, spending hours processing, resampling, slicing, distorting, filtering, EQing, resampling, reversing etc to get a really mad and unique sound seems pretty reasonable, but when you've got to do all that stuff just so that your sounds don't sound weak and do sound like everyone else, it seems like it's stifling actual innovation and it's maybe time to change style.

Emulating people during the creative process : bad

taking extraordinary amounts of time to get mixes right = good.

There are no rules creatively, but face it, mix wise, there are. Its like... writing a book... creatively you can go where ever you want, but when its done, you have to bind it right, or it will fall apart in your bag.

I love synths. I love getting a sound in my head, then trying to make that sound on a synth. I don't normally write this into tracks, just enjoy it ^_^ Try making a track where you make all your percussion by hand on a synth, getting the envelopes and filters right to make that killer kick or snare.

Depone wrote:Synth programming gives me a hard-on

This...

I HATE mixdowns, and calling tracks finished, but I would happily make patchs all day.

there is nothing better than tweaking the shit out of a synth sound and automating that one knob and realizing " holy shit, im going to use this sound"

even if it spent 5 hours or 5 minutes to make

i don't resample anything...

Basic A wrote:

slothrop wrote:Where this gets weird for me is in genres / scenes where you're spending two days EQing your snares and a week processing your bass just to get it to sound like everyone else's. To me, spending hours processing, resampling, slicing, distorting, filtering, EQing, resampling, reversing etc to get a really mad and unique sound seems pretty reasonable, but when you've got to do all that stuff just so that your sounds don't sound weak and do sound like everyone else, it seems like it's stifling actual innovation and it's maybe time to change style.

Emulating people during the creative process : bad

taking extraordinary amounts of time to get mixes right = good.

There are no rules creatively, but face it, mix wise, there are. Its like... writing a book... creatively you can go where ever you want, but when its done, you have to bind it right, or it will fall apart in your bag.

But where would you put technically very 'evolved' genres like, I dunno, neuro dnb? And there's a difference between basic decent mixing (which lots of genres in their 'oldskool' eras seem to have), getting elements that sound good and fit together and hit hard when they need to and the sort of stuff that people seem to be doing when they're spending days on each drum sound. I'm always reminded of a quote from Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals (not exactly ghetto, but bear with me) - "too many bands these days have 64 track studios and 1 track minds. I'd rather have a 1 track studio and a 64 track mind."

slothrop wrote:

Basic A wrote:

slothrop wrote:Where this gets weird for me is in genres / scenes where you're spending two days EQing your snares and a week processing your bass just to get it to sound like everyone else's. To me, spending hours processing, resampling, slicing, distorting, filtering, EQing, resampling, reversing etc to get a really mad and unique sound seems pretty reasonable, but when you've got to do all that stuff just so that your sounds don't sound weak and do sound like everyone else, it seems like it's stifling actual innovation and it's maybe time to change style.

Emulating people during the creative process : bad

taking extraordinary amounts of time to get mixes right = good.

There are no rules creatively, but face it, mix wise, there are. Its like... writing a book... creatively you can go where ever you want, but when its done, you have to bind it right, or it will fall apart in your bag.

But where would you put technically very 'evolved' genres like, I dunno, neuro dnb? And there's a difference between basic decent mixing (which lots of genres in their 'oldskool' eras seem to have), getting elements that sound good and fit together and hit hard when they need to and the sort of stuff that people seem to be doing when they're spending days on each drum sound. I'm always reminded of a quote from Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals (not exactly ghetto, but bear with me) - "too many bands these days have 64 track studios and 1 track minds. I'd rather have a 1 track studio and a 64 track mind."

Alot of DnB falls into the category of OCD like perfectionism, Ill hand you that, but Id hardly say they are trying to sound like everyone else. Neuro has an insane amount of diversity and intelligence behind it... and anyone whos ever partied to good neuro or good tekstep knows that the insane amount of time speant on each element pays off in the end. but I tihnk your confusing what people are doing as creative processing with what makes things sound 'weak' as you said up there... Weak would mean, in my mind, mixed oddly, which regardless of if your like me and want imperfection and a it of organic groove and space, or you want in your face techy neuro, proper audio engineering is a must, and your shit shouldnt sound 'weak' regardless of if your using a are 808 or an eq'd and layered twelve times synthetic hit.

Thats what I was getting at, creative process shouldnt have any determination of 'weakness' when played, everyone should e properly engineering there shit.

slothrop wrote: Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals (not exactly ghetto, but bear with me) - "too many bands these days have 64 track studios and 1 track minds. I'd rather have a 1 track studio and a 64 track mind."

watch his computer music video, he's a fucking joke. didn't seem to have any idea of what he actually did in his tracks. seems he just pokes about til he gets it right which is fair enough but no point trying to make out you actually know what you're doing.